BIRDS OF ETHIOPIA AND KENYA COLONY 179 



Male, Arussi Plateau, 10,000 feet (3,000 meters), Ethiopia, Febru- 

 ary 27, 1912. 



The green sandpiper is a regular winter visitor from the north in 

 Ethiopia and Kenya Colony. Unlike the common sandpiper, Actitis 

 hypoleucos^ it prefers to a greater degree the high, inland, to the 

 low, coastal districts. (Of course the latter also occurs inland, but 

 not as commonly.) Thus, Blanford^* writes that ochropus is com- 

 mon on the highlands, but not noted on the coast, while Mearns (as 

 listed above) procured a specimen at 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) above 

 the sea in the Arussi Plateau. 



According to the authors of the Practical Handbook of British 

 Birds,^^ the birds molt the body feathers, the rectrices, and some of 

 the innermost secondaries and coverts between December and May. 

 All the birds listed above should then be in molting condition. How- 

 ever, only one, from Adis Abeba, January 1, is molting, and in this 

 case the molt is confined to the tail. All the specimens are in worn 

 body plumage. 



The molting bird and the other unsexed one collected with it are 

 both subadult, and have the sides of the breast dusky like the mantle 

 and have the middle of the lower throat and breast more abundantly 

 and solidly streaked with brown than have the adults. 



Occasional birds are found all the year round in Ethiopia, but 

 there is no evidence that the species breeds there. Erlanger ^° re- 

 corded the first " summer " bird in that country, a specimen taken 

 by Hilgert near Adis Abeba, August 4, 1900. However, bearing in 

 mind the early date at which shore birds often begin their southward 

 journeys, it is quite possible that this record may not be an in- 

 dividual that summered in Ethiopia. More recently Van Someren " 

 noted that, in Kenya Colony, a few specimens were to be found all 

 through the year. 



THnga ochropu^ is one of those sandpipers with an enormously 

 wide geographic range that has not become locally differentiated 

 into subspecies. Mathews ^^ separated birds supposed to breed in 

 Siberia and migrating to the Malay Archipelago on the basis of 

 paler dorsal coloration (not darker as incorrectly stated by Hartert 

 and Jackson), and slightly larger size. Hartert and Jackson ^^ have 

 shown that the size difference does not hold, neither does the color. 

 The series from eastern Asia in the Museum of Comparative Zoology 

 C3 specimens from India; 26 from China, Hupeh, Fukien, Szechwan, 



"Geol. and Zool. Abyss., 1870, p. 433. 

 "Vol. 2, pt. 15, 1922, p. 616. 

 "Journ. f. Ornitli., 1905, p. 75. 

 " Nov. Zool., vol. 29, 1922, p. 19. 

 "Austral Av. Rec, vol. 1, p. 1888, 1013. 

 •"Ibis, 1915, p. 534. 



94312—30 13 



